What A Day - System Of A Lockdown
Episode Date: November 16, 2020The federal government still hasn’t affirmed Biden's victory, blocking him from the White House access he needs to get a handle on the transition and the government's pandemic response.America has n...ow surpassed 11 million COVID-19 cases, and the virus is still predominately affecting Black and Brown Americans. Some states are taking sweeping actions to slow rising case numbers, like New Mexico and Oregon, which have both reimposed lockdown measures.And in headlines: new NYPD data show the limits of independent oversight committees, leaders from 15 Asia-Pacific countries sign the world’s largest free trade deal, and Chad Wolf’s moves to limit DACA weren’t legal.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
It's Monday, November 16th. I'm Akilah Hughes.
And I'm Gideon Resnick. And this is what a day where we are hoping that Trump will concede now that he's had a parade.
Yeah, I mean, usually when you lose, you don't even get a parade and you got that. So, you know, kick rocks, get to stepping.
Yeah.
Bounce.
Normally, normally you just go home and cry, you know.
Right.
On today's show, the worsening COVID-19 crisis in the United States, then some headlines.
But first, the latest.
He won because he got more votes. OK, that's why he won. He got more votes in the
popular vote by a lot. And he won the same number of electoral votes that President Trump himself
called a landslide four years ago. But look, if the president's prepared to begin to recognize
that reality, that's positive. Donald Trump's Twitter feed doesn't make Joe Biden president
or not president. The American people did that. What we really want to see this week, Chuck,
is the General Services Administration issue that ascertainment so we can start to do the kinds of things you and I talked
about a few minutes ago, meet with these vaccine officials, kind of get the intelligence briefings
for the president-elect, the vice president-elect. That's really the measure of how this is moving
forward. That was Ron Klain, President-elect Joe Biden's new chief of staff on Meet the Press
yesterday, talking about a tweet from President Trump that seemed to acknowledge that Biden won the election
before he later reverted back to his usual divorce from reality. Klain was also discussing what the
Biden transition is doing and what it's being kept from doing by this White House. But before we jump
into that, he also mentioned that Biden now has 306 electoral votes. Yeah, that's right. So 306
is the new
final number for Biden. On Friday, several media outlets finally called the last two outstanding
states. Georgia went for Biden and North Carolina, which went for Trump. And after we finished
recording last week, Arizona was also called for Biden, lending more credence to what was seen as
an early call from Fox that really angered the president on election night. And some history
here. It's
the first time since 1982 that Georgia has voted for a Democrat for president and the first time
since 1996 in Arizona. So that's pretty big. And that cumulatively gives Biden 306 and Trump 232,
the exact electoral college spread that, as Klain mentioned, Trump officials called a landslide in
2016. Additionally, Biden's popular vote lead is at more than 5 million at
this point. And then in this next week, several states will officially certify their election
results. We're going to keep an eye on that given all the frivolous lawsuits the Trump campaign has
been filing to delay deadlines to certify. For what it's worth, on that point yesterday, the
Trump camp retreated on a major one of their lawsuits in Pennsylvania. So again, the trajectory
does not seem to be good there. And in the certification process this week includes Georgia, where a hand recount is being
conducted at the moment. And according to the New York Times, local officials in the state have to
submit their updated counts by Wednesday night before the state certification deadline on the
20th. All right, well, back to the transition. So last week, we talked about Biden not getting
the White House access he needs and concerns about what that could mean for national security. Now we're starting to hear more concerns about what
it could mean for COVID response. Yeah, that's right. So Dr. Fauci was
interviewed on CNN yesterday, and he talked about the challenge of not being able to have the
current COVID task force formally coordinate with the Biden transition team, especially during the
most perilous moment in the pandemic thus far. Well, Jake, as you know, I've been through multiple transitions now, having served six presidents for 36 years.
And it's very clear that that transition process that we go through, that time, the period of measured in several weeks to months,
is really important in a smooth handing over of the information as well as it's almost like passing a baton in a race.
You don't want to stop and then give it to somebody. You want to just essentially keep
going. That's what transition is. So it certainly would make things more smoothly if we could do
that. So just as a public health measure, you think it would be a good idea if your team would
be able to work with the Biden-Harris transition team right now, just in terms of what's
best for the public health of the American people? Of course, Jake, that's obvious. Of course,
it would be better if we could start working with them. Yeah, I mean, it makes sense. More
pointedly to Dr. Atul Gawande, a member of Biden's COVID advisory board, said that it's necessary to
begin this work to get a sense of what the vaccine distribution plan looks like right now, the current status of PPE in the country, and where
various stockpiles are. And as a reminder, the Biden team can and does continue to do its own
work to prepare for the new administration. But the official holdup is related to the General
Services Administration. That's that agency that basically manages all other agencies throughout
the federal government and has frankly never been as famous as it is right now. But as we're speaking, the GSA administrator, a Trump appointee,
hasn't sent what is called the letter of ascertainment, meaning that we're in a kind
of limbo between a lame duck president who doesn't want to do anything and the incoming president's
team. That letter frees up funding and formally links the teams in the current government with
those set to take over. It does remain somewhat unclear what exactly the workarounds could be here,
but I suppose we'll find out if this stretches on much longer.
Yeah, I hope it doesn't stretch on at all.
And so what can the Biden folks do on COVID at the moment?
And then what are they doing?
Well, so one of the interesting things that Klain brought up yesterday
was that Biden's scientific advisors are planning to meet with vaccine makers in the coming days. That includes Pfizer, which obviously had the big
announcement last week that their initial analysis of early data showed that their vaccine was at
least 90% effective. So that's a helpful step for their team, of course, but Klain was also
emphasizing that they're going to need to review the distribution plans developed at the current
HHS and the Pentagon. So distributing the vaccine is going
to be a massive undertaking. And there are tricky things to deal with, like cold storage, coordinating
with the states, counties, harder to reach rural areas in the country, as well as how to prioritize
our vulnerable populations. So we'll keep an eye on all of that, as well as what other data we might
start to see from Pfizer and other companies that are working on vaccines. But Akilah, let's delve
into the actual scale of the pandemic right now.
It's kind of hard to comprehend.
Yeah, it really is kind of hard
to even understand the scope, but top line info,
America has now surpassed 11 million COVID-19 cases
and the virus is still disproportionately affecting
black and brown Americans.
According to the CDC's latest numbers,
Hispanic or Latinx people have been hospitalized
at 4.2 times the rate of white people.
Non-Hispanic Native American people have been hospitalized at 4.1 times the rate and black Americans at 3.9 times the rate of white people.
In terms of new cases, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo put it in really frank terms over the weekend that one in every 378 Americans tested positive for the virus in the past week alone.
Let me repeat, in the last week alone.
And any day now, we will reach the grim new total of a quarter million dead Americans in this pandemic.
As of right now, the death rate is lower than in the early days of the pandemic,
but the wave of cases we're seeing now is much bigger than at any other time.
Remember, deaths lag new cases. So we're expecting
to see the death toll rise, and it could spike to new record highs, especially if hospital systems
become overwhelmed. Yeah, in just a week's span, we've added something like a million cases. So
the exponential growth here is staggering and worse than we've ever seen. And the message from
health officials in those hotspots could not be more bleak. And I know that I ask this every time
we talk about this,
but are there any states putting in more restrictions
now that the virus has reached a scary level?
Yeah, and it kind of always shocks me
because their recommendations are the same recommendations
we've had this whole time.
It's just that, you know, for some reason,
a lot of these states are run by officials
who are incapable of learning from other locations' mistakes.
But here are a few updates.
New Mexico has issued a
stay-at-home order for the next two weeks starting today. It's the most restrictive lockdown order of
any state right now, and it's similar to the kinds of lockdowns we had when all this started back in
March. Santa Fe, Albuquerque, Roswell, and pretty much every other city in the state is spiking, so
to me it makes a lot of sense. It's actually shocking that more states aren't following their
lead. Another state taking action is Oregon, whose governor has instituted a partial lockdown
starting Wednesday that orders gyms and museums closed, restaurants to suspend dining indoors and
outdoors, and that social hangouts remain six people or fewer. In Virginia, Governor Northam
hasn't called for a full shutdown, but has made the statewide mask mandate now applicable to
children as young as five. And he put a 10 p.m. curfew on buying and consuming alcohol at restaurants and
bars. Yeah, doing it up until 959 does not spread the virus only a 10. I'm only slightly kidding.
And just yesterday, we saw Michigan and Washington also get tougher here.
Yeah, that's right. So Governor Whitmer in Michigan ordered a three week suspension of
eating indoors at restaurants and bars or attending in-person classes at high schools and colleges.
Her office called it a, quote, pause to save lives.
For what it's worth, Trump's COVID advisor, Scott Atlas, responded by saying that people should rise up and not accept the policy.
It's like he doesn't care that she was almost kidnapped. It's really stupid. Then Governor Inslee in
Washington, who was one of the first governors to implement a lockdown in the spring, ordered
fitness facilities and restaurants to stop serving people indoors and is limiting retail store
capacity. And while, you know, obviously these restrictions are good and absolutely do help to
stop the spread, it's horrible that unlike in the spring, the U.S. government isn't offering relief
money incentivizing us to stay home. We're one of the only affluent countries that has a government
withholding emergency aid for citizens, and it's obviously contributing to the spread of the virus.
So if you can stay home, please do. Always wear a mask. Keep your distance. We're going to keep
you posted as this pandemic rages on, but that's the latest for now. It's Monday WOD Squad, and today we're talking about
an epic distraction. LEGO announced their largest ever toy set yesterday, a model of the
Roman Coliseum that has over 9,000 pieces. The set costs $550, which is a lot less than the real
Coliseum, and it's available for purchase on Black Friday, November 27th. This could be a smart
purchase for those of us who have pandemic hobby fatigue after months of doing the same thing
inside. Giddy, have you gotten tired of baking bread, roller skating, fill in the blank quarantine hobby, or have you somehow avoided it?
I'm exhausted of any activity at this point by far. I have not done Legos though, and this is
very, very enticing to me as a potential opportunity. Although 9,000 pieces, one,
I have a large amount of concerns
that I'll get to like page 25 of this sprawling manual.
And you know, like one of the bricks is just going to be gone
and I'm going to be like feverishly searching.
It's like, how do I identify the absence of said brick
when there are 9,000?
That makes a good, yeah, it's a really good point.
I think you should count all 9,000 pieces before you start.
Thank you, I agree. That's going to take at least a week, yeah, it's a really good point. I think you should count all 9,000 pieces before you start. Thank you, I agree.
That's going to take at least a week, you know?
That's right.
We're just, we're killing time here.
This is what the goal is.
And second, with all of these pieces,
if I accidentally were to lose one and leave them out,
I'm just setting traps for myself to have the most amount of pain
that a foot can experience,
which is getting one of them right in the arch.
Yeah, they created those Legos with, with like hating parents in mind, for sure.
Seriously.
But this is interesting.
Maybe Legos will be the thing that brings me back from the brink.
I definitely built a large space shuttle Lego set when I was younger and then crashed it
into the ground when I was tired of it.
That seems like a real missed opportunity to have that to show me right now.
But you know what?
Yes.
Yes.
I apologize for not thinking through all of this at the time.
But same question for you, Akilah.
What quarantine hobby are you trying to get into at this point?
Yeah.
I mean, it's not going to be Legos.
I got to say, I have this thing where like it's the same with puzzles, where if I know what the thing is going to become at the end, I have no it's not going to be Legos. I got to say, I have this thing where, like, it's the same with puzzles,
where if I know what the thing is going to become at the end,
I have no incentive to do it.
Like, I just am like, well, I can already look at the picture if I want to see it.
You know, like, it exists.
I don't have to be the one to make it happen.
So it's not going to be that.
But I've been really into painting my nails.
The problem, though, is that, like, when you paint your nails,
especially when you do them as well as I do,
it's like a week and a half
before you have something else to do.
And so then you're bored.
And so I think maybe I'll try to get into real painting.
But I also don't want to show people the art that I make
because I think that that's the worst.
I don't want people to tell me it's good.
It's not going to be good.
It's a means to an end.
Either reaction to the early work would be just something that totally
fucks with your head. Right. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I mean, I just,
I don't need anybody telling me if it's good or not.
I don't care if it's bad. The whole point is just to waste time. And,
you know, even just washing the brushes afterwards eats up time. Like I,
I need to like, you know, do this until we get that vaccine. So yeah,
setting up like the canvas space, maybe you got some tarp or something so it doesn't get on other
things. I like this. This is a this is time consuming, taxing, too difficult for me, but I
think that you should definitely do it. I'll let you know if I do. And just like that, we've checked
our temps. Stay safe, get a hobby, and we'll be back after some ads.
Let's wrap up with some headlines.
Headlines.
In the last 20 years, the NYPD has largely rejected or reduced recommendations for discipline of its officers from an independent oversight agency. That is according to newly released data from the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which investiginary recommendations against officers were reduced or thrown out,
even in cases where police officials confirmed that the officers violated regulations.
The CCRB was created in 1993 as a response to claims that officers weren't facing consequences for harassment and brutality.
However, the agency can't file criminal charges, can't impose discipline,
and is required to present their evidence to a judge appointed by the police department, the definition of stacking the deck. The data demonstrates the
difficulties oversight agencies face when trying to hold police accountable, especially when the
police departments control the process. Yeah, I can't imagine why anyone would want to defund them.
Leaders from 15 countries across the Asia Pacific region signed the biggest free trade deal in world
history over the weekend.
The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, was signed by countries including China,
Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as 10 countries in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The combined GDPs of all the countries in the deal amounts to 30%
of the world's GDP. It took eight years to reach the deal, which will eliminate a range of tariffs and add new provisions for intellectual property, e-commerce and more.
Leaders of the member nations say the deal will help their economies recover from the pandemic.
And experts see it as a big step towards removing trade barriers and extending China's influence in the region.
Acting Homeland Security Secretary and Trump appointee Chad Wolf
doesn't matter. And that's not my opinion. It's actually the law. A U.S. district court judge
ruled on Saturday the DHS illegally altered the order of succession to give Wolf his job. And as
such, actions he took to limit the scope of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival program,
or DACA, didn't have legal merit. Mr. Wolf, your office was essentially a large playset for
make-believe xenophobia. Wolf took aim at DACA in July after the Supreme Court ruled that the Trump
administration's decision to wind down the program in 2017 was unconstitutional. He counteracted the
decision by barring new DACA applications and cutting the length of grants and work permits
from one year to two. The judge in Saturday's case will hold conferences to work out the details of
his ruling, but the effect seems to be that Wolf's move to limit DACA are void.
So DACA is no longer suspended for new applications or two year renewals.
Wolf's experience doing work that was actually not real will prepare him for whatever corporate job he gets after his time in the Trump administration.
Well, city dwellers paying $2,000 a month to live in a converted grave with storage room for approximately one plate,
I have two words for you.
Northwest Arkansas.
Last week, an economic council there
launched the Life Works Here initiative,
which will pay people $10,000 to relocate to the area
where the cost of living is far lower
than in most large cities.
Side benefit, if we get just half a million
WOD squad members to take this deal,
we will have the numbers to flip Arkansas in 2022. Pretty sick. The program also includes a free bike, which is like
a tiny second apartment on wheels and which new residents can use to explore the hundreds of miles
of trails in the quote natural state. That's what they call that state. I think they could have,
you know, maybe gone back to the drawing board, but fine. The natural state. The program seeks to capitalize on a new level of mobility among American workers,
and it's not the only one. Tulsa Remote in Oklahoma offers $10,000 plus membership at a
co-working space, which is no longer a perk and if anything is a threat. And in Kansas,
there's Choose Topeka, which will give new residents $5,000 towards a one-year lease or
$10,000 if they want to make the move official and buy a house.
It's all very tempting, but also good if you'd rather just relocate
by switching your Zoom background from the WAP house to the Krusty Krab.
I'm going to the Krusty Krab in the natural state, blending those two options.
I think it's a good one. And those are the headlines.
That is all for today.
If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, assemble 9000 Legos and tell your friends to listen.
And if you're into reading and not just floor plans for apartments in the central U.S. like me,
what a day is also a nightly newsletter.
Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com slash subscribe.
I'm Akilah Hughes.
I'm Gideon Resnick.
And we'll see you at the Krusty Krab.
It's just going to be me and Squidward and SpongeBob hanging out.
Yeah.
Their pizza is the best pizza.
That's just facts.
For you and me.
For all of us, in fact. What a day is a production of Crooked Media.
It's recorded and mixed by Charlotte Landis.
Sonia Tan is our assistant producer.
Our head writer is John Milstein and our executive producers are Katie Long, Akilah Hughes and me.
Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kshaka.